Aviation program moves to San Martin Airport
Published in the February 4-17, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Walt Glines
Walt Glines
Gavilan College is growing. Enrollment this spring semester is up 4 percent, to 5,140 students.
But while we’re serving more students, there is a bad news/good news scenario taking place. Again, as in past years, the state is not following through on its pledge to fund community colleges for the added enrollment. California’s treasury is awash with money; yet community colleges are not high on the priority list.
We’re faced with considering limits on enrollment even though we’re the most cost effective form of higher education. And for students and their families that have seen the cost per unit rise to $36, it is the state, not the local community colleges, that sets the rate.
But it’s certainly not all bad news by any means. Locally, we’re finally moving ahead with moving our aviation technology program to the San Martin Airport. Students completing the program are in line for annual salaries of about $40,000 and more. Jobs are out there. The new site and access to hangers will allow more students to enroll and learn additional skills.
So far, our efforts to open education centers in Coyote Valley just north of Morgan Hill and near Ridgemark Golf Course just outside Hollister have been constrained by environmental hurdles. And the state Chancellor’s Office has stopped any new ed center projects. Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature have not put a bond issue that would fund new construction on a statewide ballot for many years. No one is betting we’ll see one in November 2016.
The state has made two significant changes in the mission of community colleges over the past three years. Both are major public policy shifts that are going to affect the community colleges as a system and Gavilan College directly as we do our part to promote and fulfill the system’s mission, Gavilan President/Superintendent Steve Kinsella recently told the college community.
Prior to these policy changes the focus was on access; almost to the exclusion of everything else. After complaining about not being able to give students much of anything once they were able to access our programs, our complaints were answered in the form of substituting “success” for “access.”
The first big change occurred when the legislature decided community colleges would no longer receive state support for life-long learning. This occurred in 2011 but its full effect is now being felt for the first time as colleges work to find new program offerings to boost or stabilize declining enrollments. For decades, life-long learning was an essential part of what community colleges offered to their communities. The long and short of it was that the money just was not there to continue the community college mission as it stood in 2011. The mission was changed, in part, to stop paying for some services the state could no longer afford.
Around this same time, transferring students to the University of California and California State University systems became an important priority once again. By 2012 we were all focused on transferring students. Associate Degrees for Transfer were born and became the latest solution to the pipeline problem. In fiscal year 2013/2014, SSSP and Student Equity plans were considered the solution to the completion challenge and a number of changes were implemented as a result of Student Success and Support. Funding to implement the changes began this year. Now that money is coming in we will all need to be ready to implement the state’s plan — even if the state still does not know what the final plan is going to look like.
In Kinsella’s view, it is the state’s shift in the mission of community colleges that will have the most significant effect on Gavilan for the next two to three years.
The SSSP and Student Equity plans are new requirements that resulted from the state’s change in the mission of community colleges. Both the SSSP and Student Equity plans required a lot of intense work in a short period of time. Because these are state initiatives, the state set the information submission timelines, established restrictions on how funds can be used, and provided direction on major plan elements.
A lot of instructional program work has been in process for some time for Associate Degrees for Transfer. Students will have easier paths to follow as they strive to achieve their educational objectives. One specific accomplishment is Gavilan’s submission of all of its ADTs identified by the state.
Other big changes are in store as last fiscal year the governor shifted responsibility for adult education to community colleges. How this is going to work has not been decided.
There are potentially tremendous benefits available to Gavilan from this change in mission. The secondary effects of the state’s decision to shift responsibility for adult education is that we are finally talking with all of our area high schools on a regular basis. Even without additional funding, this collaboration with local education partners is worth everything we put into building and sustaining these relationships.
While enrollment has not been a challenge for Gavilan for at least the past six years, it will eventually become a problem again as more people return to work and stop going to college in order to work. Once funding decisions are made by the state, our path going forward should be much more clear than it is right now.
Walt Glines, a Gilroy resident, was named the Gavilan College Board of Trustees president in December. He is in his second four-year term. He wrote this guest column for Morgan Hill Life.
